


mama come here

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7763794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(approach, appear)<br/>Charlie, Tommy, and Grace's absence. 'He sees nothing of his mother when he looks in the mirror, only a younger reflection of his father peering back at him, and the familiar combination of blue eyes and dark hair saddens him in a way he cannot explain.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	mama come here

**Author's Note:**

> How to make me cry - make me think about Charlie growing up without Grace. NOPE.

Charlie is all of eight when he decides he hates his name. Such a hatred perhaps has something to do with the way it falls from his father’s mouth, Tommy’s sharp pronunciation irritating Charlie to his very core. He tells his uncle of his desire to change it, thinking that Arthur will understand, Arthur will sympathise like he almost always does, but all he receives in return for his confession is a swift shake of his oldest uncle’s head and a curt, “Your mother gave you that name.”

Charlie cannot help but swallow thickly at this unexpected gift, this revelation, and the ensuing silence means Arthur dismisses the conversation almost as quickly as his nephew broached it.

Still, this new knowledge plagues Charlie, and he sneaks into his father’s study later on to peer at the photograph stashed away, collecting dust in a drawer. He has only seen it a handful of times, the last being more than a year ago, and Charlie knows the photograph is perhaps the most treasured item Tommy Shelby possesses. As such, it is with something close to reverence that Charlie sweeps away the dust covering the image, his gentle actions slowly revealing his mother’s face.

“Hello,” he murmurs, his mother still as beautiful as she was the last time he looked at her photograph. In the last year he has nearly grown as tall as Karl, but she has not changed. The photo is in black and white, but if he squeezes his eyes tightly closed, he can almost imagine the golden waves of her hair, the green of her eyes. If he tries, he can see her the way his father has described her to him. He sees nothing of his mother when he looks in the mirror, only a younger reflection of his father peering back at him, and the familiar combination of blue eyes and dark hair saddens him in a way he cannot explain. He is a Shelby through and through, the heir to a legitimate business…but, now he knows that he is Charles Shelby because his mother named him so. How can he hate the name, when he can almost remember her lilting voice murmuring it? Charlie is certain that her pronunciation of his name would not irritate him like his father’s does.

_It’s time to go to sleep now Charlie. Mama loves you Charlie. My sweet boy, my Charlie._

“Thank you.” His hands enclosed around her photograph, Charlie takes care to thank his mother, a woman he scarcely remembers but loves wholeheartedly nonetheless. “Thank you for my name.”

\---

Charlie is nearly twelve when his father consumes too much whiskey and cries in front of him. It is a cold winter night, the tenth anniversary of his mother’s death, and Tommy is far too maudlin to be denied what even Charlie knows is far too much whiskey. Everyone else has long since retired, but in his mother’s absence Charlie has vowed he shall stay by his father’s side.

He finally dares to voice his thoughts as the clock ticks closer to midnight. “Why am I named Charles?” he queries, voice loud in the quiet room. His father does not immediately answer, and for a moment Charlie thinks the whiskey may have finally lulled him to sleep, until Tommy slowly turns his head to study his son, a dark eyebrow arched in questioning.

“I mean,” Charlie continues, rambling somewhat as his father’s direct gaze unnerves him, “I know Mama chose my name, Uncle Arthur told me. I just wondered, why? Why did she choose that name?” He trails off and drops his head, unable to meet his father’s gaze for a moment longer. Even clouded with whiskey Tommy’s eyes are full of pain, a wedding band still gracing his finger even after all these years. When he is older, more aware of how terrible the world can be, Charlie will marvel at the love his father has for his mother.

“Charlie Chaplin,” his father murmurs, voice slightly slurred from the copious amounts of whiskey he has consumed. Her photograph rests on the table in front of them, as if she too is there to see Tommy safe through the night, and Charlie welcomes its presence. The portrait his father commissioned of her still hangs above the staircase, but that is far too grand, too magnificent for Charlie to speak to the way he would if she were alive. The photograph is her as she was, the Statute of Liberty behind her and the wind ruffling her hair. There is another, one taken by a bystander that features both of his parents, but that is even more precious to Tommy than this photograph is, and he has only even heard of its existence from Aunt Ada.

Charlie furrows his brow. “What about Charlie Chaplin?” he prods, desperate to understand. In the moonlight with countless glasses of whiskey drained and refilled, it is seemingly near impossible to comprehend what Tommy Shelby is murmuring. He wants to understand, he does, wants to know why he is called Charles when he could have been called another any name, but he doesn’t see how Charlie Chaplin could have had anything to do with his mother’s decision.

“She loved his films,” his father slurs, emptying another glass. The liquid in the glass tumbler itself is dangerously low, but Charlie thinks his father will fall comatose before finishing it in its entirety. “I took her to meet him, once.” His gaze flickers over to Charlie, his face unreadable. “The night you were conceived, Charlie Chaplin told me what a gorgeous woman she was.” His lip twitches, as if he wants to smile but can’t quite remember how. “As if I wasn’t aware of that already.”

Charlie doesn’t dare speak, for it seems as if his father has much to say. Silently, he pours another splash of whiskey into his father’s glass, Tommy bobbing his head once in unspoken appreciation. “When she told me of your existence, I told her to lie to her husband. Told her to convince him that you were his. I didn’t think I could have her, have you, have it all.” He laughs, a broken, bitter sound, tossing back the liquid in a single swallow. “I was right, of course. But we were happy, those two years. So happy, Charlie.”

It is hard to imagine, a version of his father that is happy, that smiles, that survives on more than just whiskey, cigarettes and the occasional half-finished meal.  He can see that version peeking through sometimes, but its appearance is only ever fleeting. He mourns the loss of his mother, he always has, for whilst Karl has Aunt Ada to brush back his forehead and pepper his face with kisses, Charlie has no one. But now he is aware he must mourn his mother’s passing not only for himself, but for his father as well, and he grieves for the life they could have had, a happier one.

“Her father’s name was Charles,” his father continues, contemplating his empty glass with weary eyes. “When she asked me what we would name you, after she’d spent hours labouring to bring you into the world, I told her that it should be her decision. She chose to call you Charles, and I knew I couldn’t have chosen a better name if I’d tried.” The glass slips from Tommy’s fingers and falls nosily onto the table, jolting his mother’s photograph. Charlie rights it quickly, thankful that the frame is undamaged.

“Your mother told me that I could chose next time,” his father murmurs, slipping further down the couch. His eyes close, and Charlie thinks that perhaps sleep has finally claimed him, until he registers the sound of quiet sobbing, his father turned away from him in his grief.

“I’m sorry.” His hands gently draping a blanket over his father, Charlie cannot help but apologise to a man he has known his entire life but is yet unable to comfort. “I’m sorry she’s gone.”

Finally asleep, his father does not reply. Charlie carefully packs away his glass and the remainder of the whiskey, before his hands come to grasp his mother’s photograph. He smooths a thumb gently over the glass, his mother’s forever youthful face peering up at him in sheer joy. How often would she have smiled at him the same way, he wonders. Or would her smile, that smile, be reserved for his father?

He might never know how beautiful his mother’s smile was, not truly, but he does know that he is called Charlie because she wanted him to bear such a name. He is a lover of music because she was, obstinate much like she was. He may look nothing like her, but Grace Helen Burgess was his mother, and she loved him deeply. He knows this, and such a knowledge shall have to be enough.

Charlie’s daughter, born in the midst of the war his father never wanted him to fight in, is to be named after his mother. He dictates as such in his correspondence home, France echoing with the sound of warfare as he hastens to finish his letter before re-joining the fray. It seems only right, the existence of another Grace Shelby, and when he finally lays eyes on his child a year later, sees her blonde curls, Charlie nearly weeps for joy. It may never have manifested in him, but his mother’s likeness is more than apparent in his daughter, and he thinks, he _hopes_ , he knows, that she would have been so very proud. 


End file.
